{"id":16692,"date":"2025-09-02T23:10:39","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T23:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/historic-incarceration-of-utes-formally-recognized-in-southern-utah-after-a-century-of-silence\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:59:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:59:57","slug":"historic-incarceration-of-utes-formally-recognized-in-southern-utah-after-a-century-of-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/historic-incarceration-of-utes-formally-recognized-in-southern-utah-after-a-century-of-silence\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic incarceration of Utes formally recognized in southern Utah after a century of silence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Malcom
Malcom Lehi, a Ute Mountain Ute councilman (left) stands next to former director of the Utah Division of Indian Affairs Forrest Cuch and A'Nuche Program Director Deena Ute. On Aug. 29, the three helped introduce a new augmented reality exhibit in Blanding, Utah, addressing the Anikanuche Incarceration of 1923. (Benjamin Rubin\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

More than 100 years after a painful episode in Ute history, a new augmented reality exhibition charts a path forward.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Aug. 29, a crowd of several dozen gathered in Blanding, Utah, for the unveiling of an immersive storytelling experience on the Anikanuche Incarceration of 1923, in turn recognizing a historical tragedy that organizers say has not been formally acknowledged over the past century.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe past is never really over,\u201d Angelo Baca, director of the XR experience, said to the crowd. \u201cIt may have been 100 years ago, but it might as well have been yesterday. Because as native people we\u2019ve been here for thousands of years. A hundred years is nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 100 Years of Silence project<\/a> was facilitated by the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in the White Mesa community to provide education on the forced removal of the Allen Canyon Utes from the Bears Ears region. The focus for the exhibit, organizers said, was not just to formally witness history, but also to take a major step toward healing.<\/p>\n

In 1923, after tensions boiled over between Ute Natives and settlers in Blanding, San Juan County Sheriff deputies forcibly incarcerated 80 tribal members for six weeks, feeding them with meager scraps and sending many native children off to boarding schools in Towaoc. Two Ute men were also murdered at the time. The Anikanuche band members were among the final wave of Indigenous people in the United States placed onto reservations.<\/p>\n

\"Angelo
Angelo Baca, director of the augmented reality experience, speaks to the crowd. (Benjamin Rubin\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Malcom Lehi, a Ute Mountain Ute Tribal councilman, said that for decades, past leaders of the tribe had wanted an educational outlet for the 1923 event. But it never happened, until today.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gonna be history-making for us \u2013 everyone of us that\u2019s here \u2013 because we\u2019ve never seen this before,\u201d Lehi told the crowd.<\/p>\n

The project, open Aug. 29 to Aug. 31, coincided with the White Mesa Bear Dance just south of Blanding. Funding came from the Hearthland Foundation<\/a> as well as the Mellon Foundation\u2019s Monuments Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Carrying around iPads and donning headphones, groups of attendees toured the grounds of the historic bank building in Blanding, where historically derived images appeared on their screens to reveal how the Allen Canyon Utes were forcibly imprisoned behind a barbed-wire stockade the size of a town block.<\/p>\n

Virtual renderings and audio components transported attendees, elders and young children alike, back in time to confront the incident. Although organizers acknowledged some bugs present in the XR experience, Aug. 29 was more of a pilot program, they said.<\/p>\n

But by the next day, bugs had been smoothed over, Baca said.<\/p>\n

A future for the exhibit is still being explored<\/a>, said Baca, with some possibility that the XR experience could travel to the Ute Indian Museum<\/a> in Montrose or the Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum<\/a> in Ignacio, for example.<\/p>\n

The work is only beginning, said Deena Ute, program director of A\u2019Nuche, a follow-up organization to 100 Years of Silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen (A\u2019Nuche) is translated, it means \u2018the new Ute,\u2019 or \u2018the new version,\u2019\u201d Ute said. \u201cAll the blood that ran through our ancestors still runs through us, but we have more advancement in technology and advancement in who we are.<\/p>\n

The exhibition opened with prayers from leaders of the Ute Mountain Ute, Din\u00e9 and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints communities before several speakers ascended the steps of the historic bank to help convey the vision of the exhibition and its place in the community.<\/p>\n

\"A
A father and son use one of the available iPads to participate in the augmented reality experience on the 1923 Anikanuche Incarceration. (Benjamin Rubin\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Speakers returned to a message that although the exhibit addressed the past, the intention was to take a step to heal historical traumas, especially for youth and future generations yet to come. Others pointed out that healing is a shared endeavor of the wider community, not solely reserved for natives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do is promote healing, not just for the Nuchu \u2013 the Indian people \u2013 but for our non-Indian friends as well,\u201d said Forrest Cuch a past director of the Utah Division of Indian Affairs. \u201cWe\u2019ve learned that trauma occurs in the oppressor as well as the oppressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time as a people to say we\u2019re gonna stand up to this,\u201d said Executive Director of Utah Din\u00e9 Bik\u00e9yah<\/a> Janet Slowman. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna help our people to understand this. We\u2019re gonna help our elders to reach back into history and say \u2018OK, this is what it may have been, but we\u2019re gonna keep moving forward.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Executive
Executive Director of Utah Din\u00e9 Bik\u00e9yah Janet Slowman (left) next to A'Nuche Program Director Deena Ute speaks to the crowd. (Benjamin Rubin\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Those who wish to help carry forward the exhibit can do so by donating to a GoFundMe page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CORRECTION Sept. 3: This article has been updated from a previous version to correct a misquote. Angelo Baca was mistakenly quoted as saying \u201cBecause as native people we\u2019ve been here for 1,000 years,\u201d when he actually said \u201cthousands of years.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new augmented reality experience in Blanding, Utah brings understanding to the Anikanuche Incarceration of 1923<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16692"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20339,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16692\/revisions\/20339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16692"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}